Crack Investigator
by Luan Mao
Summary: The tale of the best investigator in magical history
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Uh… Um… Uh-oh, I can't think of an original way to say I'm not JKR and don't own the characters mentioned in this story. Does that mean I can't post it?

**Crack Investigator**

Auror Harry Potter edged his way onto the property alone. Eyes, ears, and magical senses were on the alert, desperately searching for the lethal protections he knew must be here somewhere.

A partner would have helped, someone to split the load of searching for magical traps and watching for physical attack.

Harry was alone. No partner could ever manage to keep up with the living legend.

Ha. If only they knew.

He had both hands in the middle of disabling a magical tripwire attached to a nasty-looking ward cluster when he heard a rustle in the bushes. Then he heard a "ca-a-a-a-ak" which made his blood run cold. If he stopped what he was doing to turn his wand on the new threat, he'd be blasted into bite-sized chunks. If he didn't stop what he was doing…

"Well, aren't _you_ a pretty one?" He knew that voice. "Let me put on some light so I can get a better look at you."

A circle of light appeared, highlighting the cockatrice that had been stalking Harry. More highlit than the drab-colored lizard-bird was the long, blonde hair that went with the voice. Silvery eyes admired the beauty of the deadly beast before looking up. "Hello, Harry, fancy meeting you here."

"Luna, what are you doing here?"

"A good reporter will go anywhere there's a story. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night shall stop me from pointing out what's going around."

"Luna, you're not a postman."

"I'm not any kind of man. Do you want me to show you again?"

Harry suppressed a shudder. He was not, in principle, opposed to seeing young women naked, but Luna had stopped developing at about twelve. She was only a few months younger than he but he'd felt like a child molester when he saw her that one time. Especially combined with the strip-tease that led up to him seeing her childlike body naked. And the mature, knowing look in the eyes set in her youthful face. So wrong…

"Not right now, thanks. I'm kind of in the middle of not being blown up."

"Oh, that. All you have to do is cast a cutting charm right there – no, there, to the left, your other left, yes, that's it – and the ward scheme will fall apart."

"Got it. Thanks, Luna. You should probably be going. It's going to be dangerous once I go in. You can take your new friend with you if you want, though maybe he's too dangerous and I should call in Animal Control when I'm done here."

"Oh, piffle. He's a little sweetie-pie, aren't you, my little tricey-wicey? He'll be fine here while you go and bring villains to justice and I tag along. I haven't scooped the competition in almost a week, so it's lucky I happened to find you tonight."

"Lucky. Right. I know I can't stop you, so just watch out for yourself, right?"

**...ooo000ooo...**

"Potter! Get in here!"

Shacklebolt was on the warpath again. Harry trudged in, knowing what was coming.

The head of the DMLE waved the morning's newspaper in Harry's face. "What the Hell were you doing, giving the story to the press before the paperwork was even dry?"

"It's right there in my report, Boss. Luna showed up when I was going in and I wouldn't have made it through the defenses without her help. Then she just followed me in and got the story herself."

"You expect me to believe that _you_ needed help – help from a civilian, at that – to get in? When the department's best can't keep up with you on their best day? Pull the other one. At least you're not saying that she helped you to subdue the coven. She just stayed back and took pictures, right?"

"It's all in the report. She helped–" But Shacklebolt didn't want to hear it.

"Look, Harry, I'm not telling you that you can't have a girlfriend, even a reporter, but you've got to keep your love life separate from your work. And you can't can't can't falsify your reports to try to cover it up. Go home and don't come in tomorrow. I have to suspend you for a couple of days. Spend some time with your girlfriend. Keep her too busy to write more stories about ongoing investigations, right?"

Par for the course. Harry had been working as an auror for three years, two years and eleven months of them solo. The department alternated between suspending him for talking to the press and giving him medals for heroism and for bringing in criminals no one else could.

And Luna was with him every step of the way.

**...ooo000ooo...**

Senior Investigator Harry Potter stared at his Wall of Clues, trying to crack open the case. He knew he had most of the pattern right here in front of him. His instincts, trained both on the job and in specialty courses in Muggle universities and crime schools, told him he had all of the pieces. Now all he had to was make the final connections.

Harry knew with the certainty of an unbroken string of successes that it was only a matter of time – and not much more time – before the whole group turned themselves in to the DMLE, cutting deals to sell each other out rather than have him put on his field gear and round them up. The entire department was in awe of Harry's record. His field record matched Mad-Eye Moody's and no one in history came close in terms of putting together the clues to solve cases.

If only they knew.

Luna waltzed in. She literally waltzed into his office, doing the box step with an imaginary partner. No, not quite. A small plushie snorkack was suspended in air in front of her, obviously her partner for this dance.

"Hello, Harry."

"Hello, Luna. What brings you here? It's always nice to see you, but I'm kind of in the middle of something big."

"Oh, I knew that. You're always in the middle of something big. What else could we expect of the top crime investigator in magical history?"

"I suppose so, but you and I both know the truth, don't we?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just a simple investigative reporter for a newspaper which isn't regarded nearly as highly as it deserves. I came in today because the very atmosphere was quivering with your frustration and concentration and, ah, inebriation?"

"No, Luna, I'm not drunk. I haven't been drunk since the last time you tried to take advantage of me."

"I understand, Harry. Boys mature later than girls and you're simply not ready for that kind of relationship yet. But please keep in mind that my biological clock is tick-tick-ticking and I can't wait for you forever."

Harry didn't close his eyes fast enough, so he saw Luna run her hands down her chest and hips, and was that a hint of curvature? Perhaps she had the figure of a thirteen-year-old now. Harry twitched and turned his attention back to the conversation.

"I don't know if you should be in here, what with you being a reporter and me being an investigator with evidence up on my wall."

"Oh, poo, I don't care about that at this precise moment. I have a more urgent requirement. Here, hold Stanley." And Luna placed her plushie snorkack in Harry's arms like newborn baby. "You see, Stanley, you don't need to worry about your mommy. I can make you a picture of her any time you like."

Drawing a length of color-changing yarn from the seemingly infinite and infinitely varied stuff in her pockets, Luna quickly strung the yarn around the pushpins on the wall. "You see, Stanley? It looks just like her."

Harry could see the resemblance to an adult female snorkack … if he tilted his head and squinted.

"Now that Stanley is feeling better, we must be off. Ta-ta, Harry!" And she waltzed on out.

Shaking his head at the whimsy of his … friend? Girlfriend? Career facilitator? Whatever she was, she was gone now and he could get back to work after he cleaned up the chaos she usually left in her wake. Harry reached up to lift down the yarn and …

And Ruggerio was connected to the warehouse down by docks on the south shore. And Thompson was connected to Adams, Jackson, and Johnson. And … And the case was solved. Harry still had to write a report and bring Kingsley in to arrange for word to get to the criminals. It was customary to give them a chance to turn themselves in before the DMLE let loose The Hound.

And it looked like Harry would be buying Luna dinner again. Not tonight; he knew she'd be working all night, rushing her investigative article to print. But this was something they'd worked out for the conclusion of every big case. Harry cursed to himself. She'd be trying to get him drunk again.

**...ooo000ooo...**

"Potter! Get in here!"

Shacklebolt was on the warpath again. Harry trudged in, knowing what was coming.

The head of the DMLE waved the morning's newspaper in Harry's face. "What the Hell were you doing, giving the story to the press before the paperwork was even dry?"

"She did her own legwork, Boss, and she put the pieces together herself. She came in yesterday to visit, saw my Wall, told me a couple things I was missing, and left me to it. It's all in the report."

Shacklebolt ran his hand over his short, white hair – he hadn't been able to shave his head for years, not since a persistent rash powder had irritated his scalp; Harry had _no idea_ who could have done such a thing and he would call you a liar to your face if you said otherwise – and demanded in a tired voice, "You expect me to believe that an untrained civilian did as good a job as the department's top investigator? That she did a better job because she had to help out our _top investigator_?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying, Shack. She's good, really good. I've told you before, you need to try to bring her in as a consultant."

"So now you want me to tell the Minister that I need more money in my budget because the best investigator in history wants to give his girlfriend a real job? Get out of here, Potter. Go home and don't come in for the rest of the week. I have to suspend you for a couple of days until this has settled down."

Par for the course. Harry had been an investigator for five years, promoted to Senior Investigator after his first case and working solo because no partner could follow his brilliant leaps of intuition. The department alternated between suspending him for not being able to keep his lip zipped around his girlfriend and giving him awards for cracking open cases that no one else ever could have solved.

And Luna was with him every step of the way.

**...ooo000ooo...**

Freelance Investigator Harry Potter sat, cooling his heels. After he'd left the DMLE he'd kept his hand in with a combination of private detective work and deep-investigatory articles for the _Quibbler_. He didn't really need the money but he needed to keep busy and to feel useful. And working on the articles let him work with Luna and – and this was very important to him – let him give her full credit for the parts she did. After he'd shared his training with her, Luna's investigative proficiency had blossomed.

Luna had blossomed in another way: once puberty finally hit her in her late twenties, she'd gone practically overnight from skin and bones to T and A.

"Potter! Get in here!"

It was like old times, having a Shacklebolt yelling his name. Harry ran into the other room, knowing what was coming.

Healer Shacklebolt, Kingsley's elder daughter, lifted the bundle into his arms. "You know the procedure. You have to acknowledge him as yours, then you and your wife name him together."

Harry, Luna, and James Potter went home so she could recover before the two got to work in planning their next article series, an investigation into monetary oddities at St Mungos. While James was nursing, Harry would take the lead on the field work, of course.

And Luna would be with him every step of the way.

**...ooo000ooo...**

This bunny hatched from a message on… Wait a minute. Bunnies don't hatch. Not unless they're Easter bunnies. Anyway, this bunny was inspired by a message on the Caer Azkaban Yahoo group. It was supposed to be a crack fic, but the romance aspect kind of crept in. So, uh, it's a gift for all of those who excoriated me for Luna's fate in _Coach Granger_. Enjoy, y'all!


	2. Chapter 2

Presented for your amusement: a few scenes that go with the _Crack Investigator_ story and time line. They are not a sequel. Nor are they omakes, as they can be treated as canon. Also, these few little scenes came to more words than the base story. Um, oops.

...oooOOOooo...

"Luna, how can you still be sober?"

Luna was sitting with Harry in a nice restaurant, a Muggle one this time. Harry took Luna out to dinner whenever he closed an important case. He always did this, because of some silly idea he had about how he'd never solve any cases without her, which was sweet, but it was nonsense. Harry always did all his own investigating and found out everything himself. All she ever did was point out a few things that he already knew but didn't know he knew.

Still, she wasn't going to turn down a free meal. Such an act would cause her to be thrown out of the Journalist's Guild. Of course, a good pasta meal needs a good wine. Better yet, it needs several bottles of good wine.

Which led them to this moment.

"Luna, how can you still be sober when I am so drunk?"

"Do you know the mating call of the Black-thatched Coochie Seeker, Harry? It's 'I'm so drunk'."

Harry just stared at her drunkenly, not getting the joke. Perhaps she shouldn't have tried to alter one of the classics.

"It's a potion, Harry, the Sobriety Sipper. It allows you to drink as much as you want and not get more than slightly tipsy. It's especially useful if you want to enjoy the taste of fine wines without drunkenness interfering with the sensations. Don't tell me you've never heard of it."

Apparently he hadn't.

Plots, plans, and schemes formed in the young woman's head. Harry had avoided her for some time after she'd first tried to seduce him, years ago, and had steadily refused to be intimate with her. Luna understood the issues of physical and emotional maturity and how his poor childhood would have interfered with his ability to open up and accept her love. She also understood that she needed love, too, preferably the sticky kind of love. And, finally, she understood the usefulness of alcohol in lowering inhibitions.

"You know, Harry, the Sobriety Sipper wasn't the only potion I took when preparing for this date. I'm all set for anything that might transpire between us tonight. Let's take ourselves to my apartment and see what transpires."

She had to get them there. Harry would probably have left bits of them behind if he'd done it, and she was very fond of all of her bits and wanted the chance to grow fond of his bits.

Luna thought about joking about role reversal and getting Harry drunk so she could take advantage of him, but decided against it because it might give him a clue to her plans. Instead she put on some music and invited him to dance with her.

As she had hoped, the holding turned to hugging and kissing. Happy, Luna stared up into Harry's eyes. She was nearly hypnotized. They were so much clearer without his glasses in the way. His right eye was circling clockwise, making one loop every 3.2 seconds, with an upward tic in time with his heartbeat. His left eye was circling counterclockwise with a period of 2.7 seconds. Luna calculated when both eyes would be looking at her at the same time. She wondered if it would throw off the timing if she moved his left hand down to her bottom.

The hand on her bottom did throw off her calculations, but the good groping she got made up for it. And then Harry's hands worked their way up her torso. Luna was happy and expecting to be happier soon.

Harry suddenly froze when his hand reached her chest. He frowned and groped her some more, then backed away as if she were a rabid parakeet. No, she was blonde. Make that, a rabid canary.

"How did I end up kissing a boy?" Harry asked drunkenly. "Luna will be so upset with me, and she's so sweet. I'm sorry, young man. I thought you were my girlfriend." He then disapparated.

He left a bit of himself behind. Luna wrestled with temptation. She wanted Harry, the whole package, not just his package. Luna wrestled and lost, and took his package into her bedroom. Surely it wouldn't hurt anything to sleep with Harry, even a just a bit of his bits, and she could check for fit and compatibility.

...oooOOOooo...

Taylor called an all-hands meeting of his gang. Not that "all hands" meant much: there were only the six, including himself and Wallace, their publicly acceptable front man. Still, they'd managed to insert themselves into several very profitable money streams. He'd gone for quality, not quantity.

"Look, there's no easy way to put this so I'm going to just lay it out there: The Hound is coming after us."

Two of his followers immediately went pale. Wallace had already been pale; he'd been the one to bring Taylor the news.

"Hinkley, where are you going?"

"I, uh, I had an accident, Boss. I gotta get cleaned up."

"Fine. Get yourself cleaned up, then come right back here. No going to the ministry and turning yourself in unless we all get a chance."

"Are you sure, Boss? Couldn't there be some mistake?" Charles was almost begging for the news to go away.

"I'm afraid not," Wallace told him. "Shacklebolt told me himself. We have until sundown tomorrow, then he's loosing The Hound."

"What's this hound?" one of the new men asked. "Are they sending a boar hound after us? A werewolf? Why's everyone so worried?"

"You remember He Who Must Not Be Named? Dark lord, killed a lot of people, almost took over the country?"

"Of course. My parents took me out of school and we lived in Denmark for a few years until he was taken down."

"Remember who took him down?"

"Potter? You mean this Hound is Potter?"

"Yah, that's right," Charles said. "Just saying he's coming is enough to scare the piss out of anyone, like Hinkley."

"The Hound isn't really Potter," Wallace said. "I met Potter at a Ministry ball once. Nice fellow, everyone says so and that's how he seemed to me."

"The Hound isn't nice! He's like some kind of monster when he comes after you!"

"That's what I meant. When Potter turns into The Hound, all the nice goes away. All that's left is the guy who took down a dark lord."

"If we know this Hound is coming after us, what are we doing here? Why don't we just get out of here? We've got a whole day, so we don't even have to leave the loot, right."

"Make him chase us all over England? That'll just make him mad."

Drury, the new guy, was skeptical. "So we just split up, right? He can't catch us all."

Taylor shuddered. "No, we _really_ don't want to do that. If we make The Hound run us down one by one, it'll just make him mad."

"I don't get it. But, OK, let's say we can't run. Why can't we ambush him when he walks through the door? We know where he's coming and we know when he's coming, right? There's no way he can beat us all when we got the drop on him, right?"

Taylor and Hinkley both shuddered. "No, you don't want to ambush The Hound and try to kill him. That'll just make him mad."

Drury exchanged glances with the other new guy, Nab-something-no-one-could-remember. "It sounds like you're just blowing smoke, Taylor. Is this some kind of hazing, see if you can scare us? 'Cause I'm tellin' ya, I'm not scared, right?"

"Look, I'm going straight to the ministry to turn myself in. You can do what you want, but let me give you a word of advice. The Hound has a little girl who follows him around: blonde, skinny, ten or twelve years old. I don't know if she's his daughter or what. She's not always there, but when she is, watch out."

"I heard she's a demon and that's how Potter beat You Know Who."

"She might be writing a book about him," Wallace suggested. "She was with him at that party I mentioned and she had a notepad and camera."

"I heard about the camera, too," Charles put in. "I heard that she always takes your picture before she eats your soul."

"So look. Attack The Hound if you want. It'll make him mad, but it's your life. But whatever you do, don't attack the girl. Don't set any traps that might get her. Don't even look at her if you have a wand in your hand."

"Or what, he'll get _mad_?" Drury scoffed.

Taylor shuddered. "I knew one guy who lived through it when someone else attacked the girl. He was the toughest SOB you'd ever met. After whatever he saw that night, Heron's never said another word. Look, the coppers gave a few of us in the business a tour of the new jail a year ago. I saw Heron with my own two eyes. He just sits in his cell and hugs himself and rocks back and forth."

"You guys are all full of it. I'm going to sit here and get the Little Dog, and his pretty girl, too. I'll show you all."

"I and," Nabunenko finally put in. "I just come here one month, go police no. I fight."

Taylor glanced at Wallace, Charles, and Hinkley, then nodded. An hour later, the four surviving members of the little gang turned themselves in to the DMLE and told them where to find the bodies of the other two.

...oooOOOooo...

"Hello, Harry. Welcome back. Would you like to go to dinner tonight and then spend the weekend with me to rest up from your no-doubt successful investigation?"

"Hello, Luna. Yes, I'd like to have dinner with you, but I have to spend this weekend finding a new apartment. This building's being torn down, so I have to move out in a few days. I didn't get the notice earlier "

"What amazingly fortuitous timing! I've moved back to the Rookery. Daddy left just yesterday on an around-the-world expedition to find animals that don't exist. He never quite recovered after we found the snorkack breeding grounds and brought back pictures, you know, and he told me he'll be gone at least a year. I don't really want to live all alone in our house, so you can move in with me and it'll be wonderful!"

Harry thought it over for just a few moments, wondering if there was some ulterior motive. No, of course not! This was Luna. Luna was sweet and straightforward and not at all devious. "That would be great. Thanks, Luna. Now I guess we can spend more than just the weekend together."

Thanks to magic, Harry's apartment was swiftly packed and shrunk and brought to Luna's family home.

"Now that you're living here and not a guest, let's go over the house rules. There are only three. First, _put the seat down_." Luna's face took on a fierce expression better suited to a thirty-year veteran auror than to the sweet and slightly spacey young woman she was. "Second, if you use the last of something, write it down on this list so we can buy more. And third, um… kiss me."

"I think I can live with those rules," Harry said as he complied. "So, where do I bring my stuff, to your father's room?"

Alas, Mr Lovegood's bedroom was not at all suitable as a bedroom, what with the desk and printing press. "Er, Luna? Where did your father sleep?"

"Oh, Daddy never slept, not since we lost Mama. Sometimes I wonder if that's why some of his ideas were not as well thought out as one might expect of a grizzled newsman. I do hope you'll ensure that I sleep soundly and spare me from that fate. I'll of course be only too happy to make sure that you sleep like a log every night. And speaking of logs, shall we step into the shower?"

...oooOOOooo...

Harry stood there, waiting and wondering how on Earth he had let Luna talk him into this. Not the wedding; asking her to marry him had been his idea. At least he thought it was. It was always possible that his frighteningly intelligent and deceptively devious girlfriend had steered him into it in some way other than by being her brilliant, bubbly, and buxom self. Either way he was glad to be standing here, ready to marry his long-term girlfriend.

Even the crowd of guests wasn't a problem, per se. While he was a private man by nature, he had come to accept that he was a prominent figure and that half the world cared about the ins and outs of his daily life and felt entitled to butt in on private matters such as weddings. He would be perfectly happy telling them all to go away and drop dead, but Luna had convinced him to tolerate a large wedding. "We either have pried into their lives in the past or likely will in the future, Harry. It's only fair they get a glimpse of us for once."

No, the crowd of guests wasn't the problem. However grudgingly, Harry accepted seeing them here. The problem was them seeing him here. Seeing _all_ of him here. Harry had no religion. Luna did, and hers called for all important ceremonies and observances to be conducted in the nude, under Nature's eye.

Nature's eye watching him in all his glory was fine. Having guests at his wedding was fine. Putting them together was not fine, and that was the part Harry was trying to figure out. How had Luna talked him into this?

But then he stopped worrying about it because his bride had finally joined them. A large part of his mind was rejoicing. _Mine! All mine! In a few minutes she'll be my wife!_ A small part of his mind was even happy about the guests and the nudity. _See what I'm getting! Mine! I'll be sleeping with her and you won't!_

The ceremony was mercifully short. He and Luna stated that they wished to be wed, then had their wrists tied together before they turned to face the crowd for the first time as a family.

"I think this patch of grass looks softest," Luna told him after the applause ended.

"What? What does that matter?"

"You don't want my back to get all scratched, do you? Lay me on this patch for the second half of the ceremony."

"Second half? Aren't we married yet?"

"No, silly. We have to consummate the marriage in front of witnesses and before Nature. How else can anyone be sure it's a real marriage and not a sham? Oh, poo. Did I forget to mention that?"


End file.
